


Happier (Without You)

by TragicLove



Category: Hanson (Band)
Genre: Angst, Brother/Brother Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-05 22:22:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17333474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TragicLove/pseuds/TragicLove
Summary: Zac needs Taylor to be happy, so that he can be happy too.





	Happier (Without You)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xhorizen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xhorizen/gifts).



> xhorizen and I prompted each other to write a one shot based on the following quote from the book One Day in December by Josie Silver...this is what my angsty head delivered.
> 
> "I’m surprised by the heat of my anger toward Jack. I want to yank him out of the bar by the sleeve of his cool leather jacket and tell him: Be happy, you stupid, stupid man. And let me be too."

I’d had enough. There came a point where a person could only take _so_ much more, and I’d hit that point - probably a long time before I even admitted it to myself. But, I’d hit it, and there I was, drowning in it, sitting in the back room of a fancy bar in our neighborhood, celebrating my older brothers engagement party. 

Who even throws an engagement party for a man who was working on his second marriage? His first one fell to shit sometime between the shotgun wedding and the sixth kid, I’m not really sure exactly when it happened. I think, if you asked him, he wouldn’t even know. They’d done a good job of it, playing the happy family, making most people think they had it all together. Really, it had been shredding away from them even before it began, but what do you do when you’re told that this is your path and you’re damned well going to follow it whether you want to or not?

My parents, ever the connoisseurs of painting the perfect little public picture, had spun it to our friends and family exactly the way you’d imagine. They’d just grown apart. As they grew up, they grew further from the people they thought they’d be, but, oh, everything is great, and they’re parting on good terms.

As if that could be further from the truth.

The truth was, Natalie had walked into our office one night, we never really did figure out why, and she found Taylor in the back room. He was on his knees between the legs of some sad sack, one of the many people who’d spent their entire lives in love with him despite his inability to truly love someone back. Natalie’s exhausted ‘oh for fucks sake,’ echoed off the walls around them, and apparently after all the things Taylor had put her through, all of the years she spent knowing he’d been cheating on her, seeing it with her own eyes had finally been enough. She’d filed for divorce the next day, packed up her and the kids, and moved back to Georgia. 

Oh, and that sad sack? Yeah, that pathetic excuse for a person was me.

Anyway, with Natalie gone my parents went into overdrive. They had to find Taylor the perfect girl to settle down with, they couldn’t have their second oldest son turning into a bachelor. The things the fans would say, what would the public think? The horror.

So, they had. Her name was Amanda and she was leggy and blue eyed and blonde and nothing at all like what Taylor would have picked for himself. After all, he liked them with darker hair, dark eyes - never mind the fact that truly, Taylor preferred them with a dick. 

No one really knew that, though. Just me and the handful of other guys whose legs Taylor has spent years in between. I had to admit, they’d done a good job. Amanda and Taylor looked the part - she was exactly what I had always expected Taylor to end up with before he’d ended up with Natalie - but that didn’t change the fact that I knew he didn’t love her. Taylor only loved one person, and that was himself. It was a shame that I seemed to be the only person alive who understood that. I was also the only person alive who he’d ever even come close to really loving, and that fact wrapped up with every other bullshit moment of our collective lives, was why I’d just had e-goddamn-nough. 

So, there I was, sitting in the back of a bar I didn’t want to be in, watching everyone fawn and sigh over Taylor and his soon to be second wife. I’d rather have been out learning the art of walking on nails or maybe swallowing fire, but it would look bad if I weren’t there, and, as we’ve gone over, really that’s all these people cared about. I’d grown so tired of my families never ending facade bullshit that I hadn’t even let them know yet that their golden second son wasn’t the only person in the family shaking up their lives. Kate and I had decided to part ways, and unlike Taylor, it actually was an amicable divorce. She’d moved into a small house we owned across town and she was already seeing someone, a really nice guy named Jack - the way his name rhymed with my own not something I passed up the opportunity to poke at Kate about. 

Kate was the only person who knew about Taylor and I, about our storied history, the way we’d been sleeping together on and off since I was fifteen. I’d confessed it all to her one night after I’d drank 3/4 of a bottle of whiskey. Me, a ball of tears and half-hearted rage on our couch, her sitting stoically next to me until she’d finally sighed, wrapped her arms around me and told me it’d be alright. So, when Taylor sauntered over to the table Kate and I were sitting at, nursing our free cocktails, she’d looked up at him briefly before turning her gaze back to me. She rolled her eyes and stood from her seat, squeezing my shoulder.

“I’m going to the restroom, I’ll be back.”

I nodded up at her, moving my eyes to Taylor. He’d had a few too many, I could tell just by looking at him. I sometimes wondered if it were a curse or a blessing, knowing someone so well that you could tell things about them with just a quick glance. 

He slid into Kate’s newly empty chair and put his hand on my knee, leaning forward so our faces were close together.

“Having fun?”

“No,” my eyes were steady on his, rolling a bit like Kate’s had when he chuckled. 

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in months,” his speech was slurred and I knew what was coming. He was drunk, he’d want to hook up. Maybe squeeze ourselves into a tiny bathroom stall or into the backseat of his car. I wasn’t having it.

“That’s because you haven’t,” I said steadily, removing his hand from my knee. His eyes dropped to the spot his hand had been occupying and he moved it slowly so it landed back where it had been. We were sitting facing the rest of the room, Taylor was aware that no one else there could or would see his hand on me or he’d never have put it there in the first place. If there was one thing that Taylor always was, it was calculated. 

“Miss you,” he murmured, his fingers drawing featherlight designs over the denim covering my leg. I could have picked the fork up off the table in front of me and stabbed myself with it at the way his words made my heart twist. I hated him, absolutely loathed him, but I also equal parts loved him, and it was going to the be the death of me someday, I knew it would. 

“No,” I growled, shoving his hand back off my leg, his eyes shooting back up to mine. I’d never been outwardly angry with him before. All of the times where he’d placed me in a position where I should have been, I’d silently suffered with it, swallowed it down and waited around for him to come back to me. Those days were over now. Kate and Taylor weren’t the only ones who had found somebody new and I was going to make it work with this one - Taylor be damned. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” He put his hand on the edge of the table, still leaning towards me. I didn’t know it was possible to want to punch somebody in the face with such equal measure that you wanted to kiss the breath right out of them, but look at that, it was exactly how I felt in that moment. 

“This,” I hissed, my voice low. “You can’t just take me and leave me whenever you want. Not anymore.”

“Zac,” he slurred, putting his hand right back where I’d already taken it from twice. “You know it’s not like that.”

“It’s-” I shook my head. I could feel my anger growing, my entire body going hot. Our whole lives had been a back and forth of this, Taylor taking what he wanted despite any protestations I might throw his way and me dealing with the fallout of that. “Fuck _off_ , Taylor.” I smacked his hand off my knee again and stood up so hard my chair fell over backwards. I turned sharply, almost colliding with Kate as she returned from the bathroom.

“Whoa,” she she put her hands on my shoulders, her dark eyes looking concerned. “What happened?”

“He happened,” I spat, motioning behind me at Taylor. “He always happens.”

I moved around Kate and into the mens room, wincing at how loudly the door slammed behind me. I put my palms on the cold surface of the countertop and leaned on them, looking at myself in the mirror. This had to stop, this thing with Taylor and I. I didn’t know how to make it stop, I didn’t even know if deep down inside I truly wanted it to, but I knew I’d never truly learn to live my life otherwise. 

“Honestly?” I huffed as the door to the mens room swung open and my eyes met his in the mirror as he locked the door behind him. “Can you not take a fucking hint?” 

“Why’re you so mad?” The shit eating grin on his face as he slurred his words and wrapped his arms around my middle made me want to scream. So many things that Taylor did made me want to scream.

“I’m not mad.”

“You look pretty mad,” his teeth grazed against the skin of my neck and I couldn’t stop the harsh sigh that left my mouth. His lips worked on my neck while his hands slid down my front, one of them landing on the hard on that I was a little ashamed of. It was always so easy for him. 

“Tay,” I groaned as he began to rub me through the harsh denim of my jeans. “No.”

“Why not?” He mumbled against my neck. “Doesn’t it feel good?”

“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth, forcefully turning my body so I was facing him. There was no space between the sink and my back and even less space between my front and his own. “But it doesn’t feel good after.”

“Come on,” he gave me that smile that only he owns, the smell of booze on his breath making me a tad nauseous. His fingers worked on the button and fly of my jeans, his hand easily slipping inside, right through the opening in the front of my boxers.

I took in his well worn leather jacket, the hair falling into his intense eyes. I wanted to put both hands squarely on his chest and push him away as hard as I could, but that other part of me, the part that craved him no matter what my brain said, arched into his grip, relishing in the lightning bolts that shot through my body as his hand slid over me. 

“You’re getting married, you idiot,” I breathed, my eyes locking with his. I could feel the heat in my cheeks, and I knew he could see it. “Why can’t you just be happy?” My breath hitched as he slid to his knees, his eyes looking up into mine the whole way down. “Why can’t you just let me be happy, too?”

 

 

The next time I saw Taylor was four months later in that same bar for his bachelor party. I kept a wide distance in between us for most of the night, him laughing and talking to friends he didn’t see often, me nursing a Jack and Coke that I didn’t want and putting on my best poker face for every person who I didn’t want to be talking to. 

When midnight rolled around I figured I’d put in enough time. I said goodbye to all of the people who I felt I was obligated to - all of them except for the groom-to-be, that is.

I felt his hand wrap around my elbow just as I was about to cross the street, his swaying body dragged me around the corner and pressed me flat against the brick of the building I’d just walked out of. It was dark, the streetlights flickering over our heads, but I could see the intent in his eyes. 

“Tay,” I spoke softly. “It’s late. I have to get home.”

“After,” he smiled, moving to kiss me, his warm lips landing on my cheek when I turned my head.

“No,” I said calmly. I’d made my decision that night in the bathroom four months ago. I might love him until I died, but I’d be fucked if I allowed him to use me for the rest of our lives. 

“C’mon,” his hands were all over me, searching for something. Maybe it was that feeling he’d never found anywhere else but wouldn’t admit as much to me, or himself, until years later at a party just like the one we’d been at that night, except this time it was for me.

“No,” I said a little more sternly, my hands somehow finding and grabbing his and pushing them away. They fell limply to his sides and he tilted his head a little, his eyes widened. I’d never denied him before. I think I might have shocked him as much as I shocked myself. I moved from the wall and took a step closer to him, keeping my voice as still as I could despite the overwhelming sudden urge I had to scream.

“We’re done here. For good.”

“What?” He crinkled up his forehead, shaking his head just a bit. “We’re not-”

“We’re done,” I said again, shrugging. 

I turned away from him, ignoring the way he called my name a few times as I made my way down the block to my truck. 

“Be happy, Taylor,” I called over my shoulder. “One of us has to be.”

**Author's Note:**

> xhorizen wrote this from Taylor's perspective [HERE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17423246) and if you liked this, you should definitely go over there and read that.


End file.
